Tubular workpieces, such as gun barrels and engine cylinders, often require hard, wear-resistant, and/or corrosion resistant interior coatings. Although methods exist for depositing protective coatings on planar surfaces, these line-of-sight process are ineffective in providing a coating for a tubular workpiece. A number of techniques have been used to coat interior tubular surfaces, including magnetron sputtering. Unfortunately, the magnetron sputtering systems used to form such coatings generally have been inefficient and/or ineffective. More efficient and effective methods for applying such coatings are needed.